Chabad’s major donor Lev Leviev and his American development partner* Shaya Boymelgreen seem to have learned their business practices from Aaron Rubashkin. BrooklynPapers.com reports:

A developer who plans to transform the banks of Brooklyn’s Lavender Lake into a designer subdivision called Gowanus Village is facing a state investigation and legal complaints from construction workers and dozens of disgruntled condo owners.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is examining a claim by 200 construction workers that developer Shaya Boymelgreen failed to pay overtime for the past three years — the same charge that is being heard in a separate class-action suit at state Supreme Court, — a source in Spitzer’s office said.

Spitzer’s lawyers are also arbitrating complaints from Park Slope condo owners who bought Boymelgreen apartments only to discover that the windows didn’t keep out the rain, walls weren’t properly insulated and bad engineering meant moldy cellars.…

“The supervisors want everything done fast so if a contractor doesn’t finish something then [the supervisor] will just tell whoever is on the site to finish it up, even if we’ve never done it before,” said a Boymelgreen laborer, one of dozens who submitted his pay records in the class-action complaint now before Spitzer.

The worker earns $10 an hour — a third of what a union member takes home. He says he is owed thousands in back overtime pay.

Despite the cloud hanging over him, his work and his labor practices, in June, Boymelgreen announced that he would begin turning his attention on burgeoning residential markets in Israel, Europe and India.

“…We’re going global,” he told the Wall Street Journal last month.

The Rubashkins were honored by Colel Chabad last December, in the middle of the Postville scandal. Boymelgreen is seen top left at that dinner with Rabbi Binyomin Klein and Sefardic chief rabbi of Israel Shlomo Amar.

A reader reports that Boymelgreen came from Israel to study in Crown Heights and that, at a Yud Tes Kislev gathering in Boro Park this year, it was announced that Boymelgeen is sponsoring a new edition of the Tanya, the classic work of Chabad hasidut. It will be a named edition, like the Gutnick Chumash.

Boymelgreen also owns the Jewish Press building. The JP gives Chabad a lot of space to push its agenda. Is there a link? I don’t know, but one can speculate there is.

Move over Rubashkin. There’s another ‘frumer yid’ trying valiantly to outsleeze you. But don’t worry, Chabad will still have its piece of the sleeze crown.

*Leviev “cut back” investment with Boymelgreen in June, perhaps because of the growing scandals associated with Boymelgreen, which certainly would damage Leviev’s move into branded retail diamonds. Still, the company is Leviev-Boymelgreen, and Leviev continues to be involved both financially and in management.

Boymelgreen is not just a partner of Lubavitcher supporter Leviev, he is a Lubavitcher himself, who came from Israel to study in Crown Heights years ago. He is sponsoring a new fancy edition of the bible of the Lubavitchers, called Tanya. They are trying to make fancy editions of their important works, in order to lend prestige to and better disseminate their theology. Just like they made the Gutnick chumash, they are now working on the Boymelgreen Tanya.

Boymelgreen recently bought the large headquarters building of the Brooklyn based Jewish Press newspaper, a paper that is most friendly to Lubavitch, giving them loads of space regularly for their propaganda, even allowing overt messianism at times.

The Jewish Press is a dumb rag laced with Lubab influences.It’s a racist newspaper very similar to Der Sturmer.They were given the building for a single dollar by the City of New York back in ’70’s when New York was in bad shape and looking to stabilize.Anyway payday has come for the Jewish Press, they have made a mint on the building.They are however staying put for the next couple of years, not moving out of their huge building,that used to have a printing press in it.Now that it’s printed elsewhere they could make do with a couple of rooms.Since the building will only be changing hands in a couple of years, it is quite interesting to understand the exact point of the transaction.
Shmarya:You are always happy to point out sleazy business practices of the frummies.If you were honest you’d admit that the frummies have no monopoly on sleaze, see Enron and many. many others for example.Stop being so one sided!

It’s a shame Boymelgreen couldn’t make a profit w/out cutting corners: judging by the website the Park Slope units could have been very nice places to live. This is not a penny-ante guy; impressive-looking portfolio.

What impresses me most is the courage shown by Democratic gubanetorial hopeful Spitzer in taking on Boymelgreen who has influential contacts not only in the Charedi world but also in the world of NY real estate. Not that shows some courage by a politician standing for a stae wide office.

If you were honest you’d admit that the frummies have no monopoly on sleaze, see Enron and many. many others for example.Stop being so one sided!

1- may be so, but the enrons don’t go around telling people how wonderful they are, how people should behave and how they are Gd’s sole agents on earth!
don’t you think so?
2- if a talmid chacham chayav meeta for having a dirt spot on his cloth. what do you think he should qualify for if he beats mafiosi on their turf?

The shoddy workmanship is not, according to the article, even a criminal matter–it is in “arbitration”. That’s not much of a threat–more of a courtesy. Overtime violation occurs throughout the American workplace day in and day out–not to mention, down here in the mid-Atlantic region, routine use of illegal aliens and a whole host of “off the books” practices in the construction trades. I’m shocked, shocked.

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